Stephen King recently wrote an essay for Entertainment Weekly called "The Joy of Looking." In the essay, he talks about a segment on the Ellen DeGeneres Show where she shows clips of people (or animals) performing random tasks such as "babies making faces and cats unscrewing the tops of their food containers with their cute li'l pawsies."

It seems pretty par for the course for Ellen's show. For all of Oprah's self-help pagentry and freebie giving out, I never feel as good after her shows as I do after watching Ellen dance around. It's bubble gum for the soul.

In "The Joy of Looking," Stephen King writes about a recent clip he saw on The Ellen DeGeneres show of a man caught by a Best Buy security camera dancing in the aisles to the sounds of Smokey Robinson's "Going to a Go-Go." It's a great clip of a man just letting it all hang out, not really caring who sees him.

Stephen King then wrote about how we tend to spend a lot of mental energy grading this piece of art or comparing this television show to that television show...ahem...that we sometimes forget why we love art in the first place.

I'll be the first to admit that I engage in a whole heckuva lot of debates about whether "Battlestar Galactica" is better than "LOST" or whether "Black Sabbath" could smoke "Led Zeppelin" with their guitars and hard driving songs. And I admit that these debates sometimes mar how I enjoy the art at my fingertips. But for all of my analyses and critiques that I put forth, I try to never lose sight of the pure emotions great art is supposed to elicit.

Luke and I recently had a discussion about Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. Or more accurately, it was one of those Black Sabbath VERSUS Led Zeppelin types of arguments. It unfortunately took place over an Instant Messenger conversation, because I would have preferred a person to person discussion where we could sample audio clips from both bands while talking about the good and bad of both bands.

Luke concluded the conversation by saying, "Well, it doesn't really matter anyway because they're both great bands." Luke said it first, but that's usually how I like to conclude these types of conversations.

If I ever lose track of "the point" of listening to a great band, watching a great show, viewing a great movie, or reading a great piece of prose, then I should just pack it up for a bit until I'm able to come back and enjoy it on the level it deserves to be enjoyed.

I'm getting a little off base with what the article is about, but I want to say one more thing before moving on. I think this article really made me think about the way I listen to music. I think I need to let go of my need to "have." I talked about that concept recently in the Pink Floyd post I wrote a couple weeks ago.

But more importantly than my need to "have," I need to stop spending so much mental energy comparing this thing to that thing. This is going to be difficult for me because comparing things is how my brain tends to operate. "You Can't Always Get What You Want vs Hey Jude." "Simpsons vs. South Park vs Family Guy." "LOST vs. BSG."

I bet that if I'm able to cut down on the quantity of comparing this thing to that thing, I'll better enjoy this thing AND that thing.

But back to the point of Stephen King's essay and to the original reason why I started this post, I want to start a matthewmckibben journalscape series of sorts where I occasionally talk about a song or piece of literature or television show that makes me want to break out into sponteneous dance, both in the literal and figurative meanings of the word.

There are songs, movies, books, and shows that just fill you with so much joy that you feel like dancing in the aisles. And I want to (every so often) talk about these pieces on my blog...without all of that comparison stuff. Artists don't make art for it to be compared with other artists. They do it to get people dancing in the streets.

I've already written enough for today, but expect my first post sometime soon.

-Matt

Included below is Stephen King's "The Joy of Looking." The clip he's talking about is on YouTube.

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The Joy of Looking

By Stephen King

In the entertainment business we talk so much — books, music, movies, theater, blah blah blah — that it's easy to forget why we came to the party in the first place. I got reminded the other day on a hotel treadmill, of all places. The little TV attached to mine got only four channels, so following the immutable First Law of TV Viewing, known to network execs the world over as LOP (least objectionable programming), I opted for The Ellen DeGeneres Show. Of course I did. The other choices were Judge Judy, Nancy Grace, and some weird infomercial about scarfing up Chinese herbal remedies and living forever.

It turns out that Ms. DeGeneres has a video segment featuring innocuous and mildly amusing stuff, like babies making faces and cats unscrewing the tops of their food containers with their cute li'l pawsies. Only on this day there was a clip so striking that I stopped my daily walk to nowhere and just watched, first grinning, then laughing and actually hugging myself with delight.

I checked out a longer version of the video on YouTube. It was shot by a high-angle security camera and shows a customer shopping in Best Buy — just an ordinary fortysomething dude dressed in jeans, a black T-shirt, and sunglasses. Looks like that male-pattern baldness thing is starting to make itself known in his life. He's shopping, I guess. Then the clip's audio kicks in with one of the greatest rock songs of all time: ''Going to a Go-Go,'' by Smokey Robinson & the Miracles. (No, it's not on my list. Silly me, I forgot it.) Shopper dude with the thinning hair starts to move a little. Checks out something on the counter of a momentarily unattended checkout station. It's of no interest to him, but the music starts to hit him. He pops a hip. And then — great God A'mighty — he starts to dance. Before long he's really busting moves; I mean this guy is doing his duty and shaking his booty. If your Uncle Stevie is lyin', he's dyin'.

For more than a minute the guy is giving it his best there in Best Buy, having the time of his life. At the end of the vid, someone comes into the picture and accosts him. It might be store security, sent by the grinches in management to make him stop — the clip ends before that's clear — but I'd rather believe the two of them ended up dancing side by side, doing the Chorus Line thing. I know I would have joined him if I'd been there.

The whole deal might have been staged — so many of them are these days, lonelygirl15 being a case in point — but it doesn't matter. The crazy guy dancing in Best Buy, be he fake or fact, demonstrates the real purpose of these things we write about — to cause a sudden burst of happy emotion, a sudden rush to the head, the feet, and what may be the truest home of joy: a butt that just has to shake its happy self.

I felt it when I saw Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds. I sat there amazed and full of happiness, thinking: ''Yeah. This is exactly what I wanted today.'' I feel it every time I listen to ''Jump'' by Van Halen or ''You've Got Another Thing Comin''' by Judas Priest. I feel it every time I put on my club mix of Lou Bega's ''Mambo No. 5.'' I'm sure some of you think that's silly, but you probably have your own personal joy buzzers (for a very hip friend of mine who shall go unnamed in this piece, it's the Dolly Parton version of ''I Will Always Love You'').

It's easy — maybe too easy — to get caught up in serious discussions of good and bad, or to grade entertainment the way teachers grade school papers (as EW does, in case you missed it). Those discussions have their place, even though we know in our hearts that all such judgments — even of the humble art produced by the pop culture — are purely subjective. And as a veteran grade-grind in my youth, I have no problem with awarding A's, B's, and the occasional F to movies, books, and CDs (which is not to say I don't also have reservations about such drive-by critiques). But artsy/intellectual discussions have little to do with how I felt when I saw Rob Zombie's The Devil's Rejects. This movie made virtually no one's top 10 list except mine, but I'll never forget some exuberant (and possibly drunk) moviegoer in the front row shouting: ''This movie KICKS ASS!'' I felt the same way. Because it did. The same way Smokey & the Miracles kick it — even in Best Buy.

I'm not talking about guilty pleasures here. Guilty pleasures aren't even overrated; the idea is meaningless, an elitist concept invented by smarmy intellectuals with nothing better to do. I'm talking about the pure happiness that strikes like a lightning bolt out of George Strait's blue clear sky (another sacred occasion of joy for me). It's the way I feel about The Wire. The way I feel about Forest Whitaker in The Shield, offering Vic Mackey's ex-wife, Corrine, a stick of gum with that scary-shy, passive-aggressive grin of his. The way I felt about Black Rain, the new Ozzy Osbourne CD. I don't know if these things are art, and I don't really care. All I know is that they make me want to laugh and dance in the aisle at Best Buy.

And that's enough.

Because, dammit, that's what it's for.